John Kennedy Toole authored A Confederacy of Dunces, one of the most hilarious and enduring novels in American Literature. Unfortunately, he committed suicide twelve years before its publication. After years of teaching the novel and researching his life, I am writing a book that is long overdue: a critical biography of John Kennedy Toole. In this blog I will share my thoughts and experiences as I explore one of the most compelling stories of American Literary History.

Friday, December 17, 2010

Toole was born this day in 1937 in New Orleans. His mother called him her "Beauteous Babe."

I have spent the day thinking about Toole's time in New York City. Thanks to my May trip to Columbia and having the opportunity to see the dorm room in which he lived in 1958, I was able to identify some of the old photographs in the Toole Papers at Tulane.

It has been a good day, pondering a time when he had the world in front of him--nothing but opportunity, potential and talent.

Thursday, December 2, 2010

I am making steady progress. I finished two more chapters this month. I focused on Toole's days at Tulane and his first year at Columbia. I am quite excited about the Tulane chapter, wherein, I think I have contributed insight into his intellectual foundations as a writer and a satirist.

I am two steps closer to portraying him as the complex individual that he was--as opposed to a caricature of a suicidal artist. Of course, I will need to make some corrections and additions as I have several more intereviews lined up that will probably give me some quality material for those chapters.

Today I begin on the chapter focused on his year in Cajun country. This is when he met his primary inspiration for Ignatius Reilly and two of his truest friends, Patricia Rickels and Joel Fletcher. I need to hammer out two more chapters before the first of the year to say on schedule for my July deadline. So far, with much dedication, all goes well.